PescadoAmarillo

I do enjoy HAL, and they’re ships are allowed to enter Glacier Bay National Park, which is a plus, but their destination program pales in comparison to Princess’s. Sapphire vs. Coral is kind of a toss up for me, but I like the aft buffets a little more than the forward ones, and Skywalkers is great for scenic cruising.

Yeah, I guess I don’t know how to be all over them. When this happened last time, the original cabin was available for one of the two cruises we had been moved. When I chatted with Princess, they had me on hold (on chat!) for over an hour, and in that time, the original cabin disappeared.

This doesn’t always work. We’ve especially had trouble when booking a series of B2B cruises. We’ll book cabins in an area that we’re happy with, usually in a favorite location that will make moving between them on turnaround days easy. They are all marked No Upgrade. Princess’s computer sees that we could get a same cabin for two of the cruises in a row, in an area we don’t like, also making moves to and from that area on turnaround day hard. They move us to that cabin for 2 cruises (theoretically an upgrade only because it’s a lower deck). We haven’t been able to get our original cabins (which we paid extra to choose) back.

This. And with each new class of ship the issue gets worse. At one point, Princess actually had a second, different guest entertainer (not karaoke) show running more or less concurrently in another venue, such as The Explorers Lounge, so if you couldn’t get a seat for the Princess Theater show, there was another good option. I haven’t seen that for years.

Next week in Alaska!

Those groups turn out to be a lot of fun (I’ve been told), very fluid and friendly. On some cruises, the manager of the dining room used for breakfast and lunch can be asked to have an 8 person table available as a singles table, and people can come and go as they wish and if they wish. Attendance at the singles table at dinner tends to be more stable. @Sheila127, the really nice part about Australia and New Zealand ports is that the ship typically doesn’t dock in a freight area. You can walk right off the ship and find lots of excursion offerings in the pier area. And the ports, in general, are very safe, so you could be comfortable just a seeing around on your own, too.

interesting article about Starlink in the latest Travel Age West. https://www.travelagewest.com/Travel/Cruise/wifi-on-cruise-ships

Yes, HAL does disappoint with their combination cruise director/destination specialist. And their cruise directors are pretty (very) sedate. It’s hard to fully grasp what an impact that has on a cruise until you experience it. But I love their musical entertainment options.

True, and this is the only reason we did our long cruises on Princess. I was willing to do hand laundry every single night on the Norwegian Spirit for 12 days, but 120 days of that would have gotten old. Some of the older HAL ships had them and I believe that Azamara might have kept them in their R-class ships (like the Pacific Princess), but they certainly don’t exist on most cruise ships.

I don’t think you can go wrong with either choice. We are frequent Princess cruisers who also have about 75 days on HAL. I love HAL for the size of their ships, the tiny sofas in even their inside cabins and their food choices, but I also love their classical music entertainment. Princess has more activities, and with a lot of sea days, you might appreciate that. And, of course, the biggest Princess selling point in my mind: self serve passenger laundries.

That’s exactly what we”ll do, but it was easier when the Maitre d’ had a scheduled time on embarkation day to discuss dining options.

Yes, but….without DMW reservations, you’ll be waiting in a line to be seated at dinner every night. Heck, even with DMW reservations you might be waiting in a line every night…or the reservations might be changed…or disappear altogether.

The return address on the envelope used to be Bottom Line Technologies, but I had read here recently that Princess was making it a little more obvious that it was not junk mail by having “Princess” somewhere on the envelope. @Toledosfinest, love your user name. I was born and raised in Toledo and my family is all still there. In fact, my mom is in the Monclova/Holland area.

Honestly, and not to make light of your concern, I wish that an incorrect countdown clock was my biggest app issue. I couldn’t input any personal information for n upcoming cruise, and in attempting to get it fixed, ended with with someone in the Philippines trying to sell me chocolate covered strawberries.

Hi @chamima, hope you are well. My only experience with this is sitting next to a young couple for a ten night cruise, and they had a sealed dinner delivered every night. I can’t say it looked better than our food in the main dining room, but this was at least ten years ago and we all know Princess standards have slipped a bit… We didn’t see it but they said they were served kosher meals for breakfast and lunch also. We learned a lot from them that cruise, especially with the standing up and praying and sitting down, then standing again. I suspect that’s how a Catholic Mass looks to non-Catholics. 😉

The ship will not dock, but may offer an overland excursion (overnight) and passengers booking that will disembark onto a Fiordland boat and be taken ashore. It depends on the itinerary. You cruise into three sets of sounds: Milford (turnaround and come out the same way), Doubtful/Thompson and Breaksea/Dusky. If you’re very lucky you’ll get into all three, but we’ve also missed all three too, due to weather. Lots of photos here: http://pescadoamarillo.blogspot.com/search/label/Fiordland National Park

This was pre-RealID, so I had my drivers license and birth certificate, which were not enough as the last names didn’t match. The marriage certificate tied them together. If I had not been so happy to lose my maiden name (NEVER spelled or pronounced correctly), I definitely would have just kept it which would have made some things much easier (like double CCL OBC for our cabin in the past, not any longer).

Funny thing about the marriage license for the name change. Our first international trip as a couple was a 1996 dive trip to Cozumel, Mexico. My passport had expired, but we were both still working and we didn’t see international trips other than to Mexico for diving in our near future. I had no trouble getting into Mexico with my birth certificate, but on our return, thankfully direct into our home airport, the last name thing tripped me up and I was not allowed to pass through immigration. DH had to run home to get our safe deposit box key, get to our bank before they closed, get our marriage certificate and drive back to the airport to clear me into the US. I applied for a passport the next day.

It will count as two cruises.

People are reporting in Facebook that the Ruby will now depart San Francisco on Sunday for a 7-night cruise with Prince Rupert and Ketchikan as its only stops. No info yet on refunds or FCCs.

You can have two cruises booked concurrently. I have that right now. Naturally, it is pre-final payment on both of them, so I can’t comment on if you might get a phone call if the cruises were both scheduled to sail next week. It does really mess up your Medallion app, but that happens even without concurrent bookings. It takes a week or so after you cancel one of the cruises for things to appear correctly in the app.

When the Pacific Princess hit the breakwater going into Nice, it took more than six hours for Princess to notify passengers that the current cruise was ending immediately and the next cruise would be cancelled. And that was a gaping hole below the waterline that took out water and sewage. Things move slowly when accidents like this occur.

I became acutely aware of the limitations of Royal Class scenic cruising in a rainy environment while on the Majestic Princess in Fiordland NatIonal Park, New Zealand. Unless you have a fully covered balcony (and there are some of those that are excellent, although most are quite small), there is no place to stay out of the elements and yet take photos of the scenery. People congregate on the covered deck behind the buffet and that area is packed.

The Hop On Hop Off bus is really great. You can take it to le marché, a few beaches, the aquarium, Duck Island, etc.

If you are shopping for a new cell service, consider T-Mobile. Especially on port intensive cruises, it works great. We pay $60 total for two phones with limited included international coverage. Unless you plan to be out of the US for more than two billing months in a row, we’ve found it can cover our needs in ports.